


Parting

by veeoheyedee



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeoheyedee/pseuds/veeoheyedee
Summary: In which a boy sacrifices everything and learns absolutely nothing.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Parting

The falling sun had set the sky alight, and an unseen painter had used it as canvas to brush purple streaks through orange flames with childlike abandon. The grass of the meadow danced in the warm breeze, as though bidding farewell in ritualistic unison to that mighty ball above as it descended. It would continue dancing too, to welcome in the moon as it arrived for yet another hard night’s work, but only for as long as the breeze continued to help. The grass had no say in the matter regardless. Whether it wished to dance or greet or move at all, the wind’s flow would make a decision for them, and it would be powerless to refuse. It was as good as a stick swept up in a river’s path - the movement only stopped when the flow also stopped. And for something with so little agency, surely that flow must seem endless at first.

The Boy had known that flow as well, at one point. He understood the plight of a blade of grass being rocked to and fro by gentle, soothing winds and calamitous storms. He knew the twig that yearned for an end, drifted away by even the lightest, calmest of currents and still being too weak to fight against it, only to be thrown into a raging tsunami, crashing against the tallest waves, waddling helplessly in a sea with no choice but to float and go wherever the waters willed to take it. He knew it. He lived it. And then he felt it inside him - again, and again, and again, and again.

The Boy looked to the sky as his faithful horse strode through the meadow, flattening the grass wherever its hooves fell. The moon had already shown itself, peeking almost invisibly over the horizon, arriving for work early when it really wasn’t necessary. He kept staring at it, entranced, as though expecting to see something there, to learn something from it. It posed no threat, so small and far away as it was, and yet for as transfixed on it as he was, the Boy could feel nothing except conflicted in its presence. 

Vague thoughts entered his head, filled his being with memories that felt as though they belonged to someone else, yet he somehow knew to be his own. A looming moon. A ticking clock. Faces of many grafted onto his own; power both gifted and cursed. Swamp - sickening stench, and a scenic boat ride. Mountain - frigid wind, and a burning thrill of competition. Ocean - uninhabitable waters, and instruments playing in unison. Canyon - a tower of stone surrounded by dust, and a deafening, welcoming silence of the dead. Four giving an oath. A farm. A town. A festival. An inn. A reunion. A lone tree atop a hill. An all consuming evil, and a fairy that flew into its maw, and stayed within until it was vanquished - until the very end. Friends that never recieved a proper farewell. 

The Boy knew these thoughts belonged to him, for they resonated strongly enough to make his heart ache, flooded him with palpable despair and comfort in equal measure - memories he wished so desperately to keep hold of. And yet, for all he grasped at them, they kept slipping through his fingers like air and water. For as much as he felt them clawing every corner of his self, the faces and names contained within were as ghosts. 

The cruelty of it then, that the memories he wished to distance himself from were rampant, as though they had occurred only yesterday. The deity of the forest children, dead, murdered. The guiding owl and the rolling fields, and the bones buried beneath its emerald green. The marketplace, both filled with vibrant life and ashen soot. The village that refuged the survivors of a seven year struggle, and the farm that provided life-giving sustenance, reduced to a breeding ground of vengeful greed and creatures of war. The kind denizens of the red mountain, first starved, then threatened by extinction as food for an ancient beast. The proud river-dwellers, their deity afflicted, then their race frozen within the very waters they lived. The naive princess of destiny, and her unintended deceit delivered to an equally naive child. That man from the desert, consumed by thirst and ire alike, and the revolting beast that lay within him. The body too small that wore clothes too large, and the grand temple - a sanctuary, and a prison.

The Boy undid all that could be reversed in the land that he had once resided in - in another time, and concealed inside another’s skin. He did all he was told to do, all that had been expected of him, as though the journey would teach him some great lesson, impart on him some hidden wisdom to match whatever power and courage he already had - as if it were his calling, his destiny. And in the end, he found himself with nothing. Discarded, forced back out of the same body he had been forced into, the very goal he had broken himself to achieve - undone, recalled only by himself as vivid, intrusive memories. 

Home.  _ Where _ he was supposed to be. The  _ way _ he was supposed to be. He had been given no say in the matter.

In return for his efforts; all who once knew him - they had also forgotten him. Those he had come to trust and love - gone, without even a chance for him to say farewell. And his guardian fairy, the one who had lit up his sad little life, who travelled up and down that cruel river alongside him, who helped a mere child to cope with the burdens he oh-so innocently accepted responsibility for - she abandoned him, floated away into the blinding light, without saying so much as a single word. 

All that he would have wished to receive had been stripped from him, and all that he had been left with is scars, a fractured mind, and one last, unspoken goal - to convenience a naive princess and her family of royalty to put a man on his knees and an axe to his neck, and slay a monster before everything that had been fixed and reverted would happen all over again. So he did - his last, selfless gift to the land he had freed, and thus his purpose had been fulfilled. 

And yet, he took no pleasure in carrying his final task out. The Boy hated that man from the desert as much as he hated that princess of destiny, and he hated them both as much as he hated himself. Yet he still could not bear to watch a pig be slaughtered, and witness as royalty feasted on its carcass in victory. The Boy did what he did, and in time his quiet words appeared to sway the naive princess and her father, and they made assurances that they would do what they would do. And that, as far as the Boy was concerned, was good enough for him. 

He remained there in that land for some time, rebuilding what he could from scratch, honing his newfound capacity for heroism and violence, attempting to teach himself and be taught skills that would make him useful in the peaceful times to come. Searching for meaning within his home, all while caught somewhere between a boy and a man.

And yet.

And yet.

His heart yearned for more, but his home did not provide that which he sought.

And then he realised, soon, that his home did not feel like a home. Idyllic greens and clear blues tainted by furious reds and voids of black. A future only he could see every time he blinked. 

The Boy did not belong. He never belonged. And he probably never would. And he would much rather remove it all from his mind than recall with every waking breath. 

He felt it a cosmic joke, then, that all he would wish to forget would not leave him alone, and all he would wish to remember would shy away in fright. For as much as he found that slowly rising moon instilling a primal terror in him, he wanted also to know why he felt so warm and calm in its presence. He wanted to know why those fading memories whispering endlessly in his ears held so much more power over him than the faces and flames that had branded themselves onto him. The only thing that tied them together was music - songs that could mend broken hearts and give peace to those that need it. Songs that granted the boundless freedom of birds and could awake those enraptured by the deepest of slumbers. Songs that could make him feel that those he cared deepest about were standing right beside him. Notes that could halt and redirect the very marching of time itself, and control the flow of that cruel and endless river with ease. 

He knew, and trusted, and believed in the power of those songs - but that was it. For those that he could place, he felt nothing but a sombre, bittersweet pain. And for those he could not determine the origin of - an angering hollowness that he wished to fill. 

And the Boy could not shake off the feeling that, just as he had been abandoned and forgotten, he too had forgotten and abandoned someone in kind. 

Maybe that was why he now found himself cutting an unforged path back towards the Lost Woods. To try and rediscover the memories he had so clumsily dropped. 

The Boy could not remember when he left Hyrule. All he could recall is himself and the filly he rode on entering the dense and towering trees that encapsulated the forest in which he grew up, in search of the one who his heart desired answers from, and then exiting out the other end days later. Somehow he knew that so much more time than that had passed. He had fully expected there to be no end to the Lost Woods, that it would grow as many obstacles as it felt necessary to dissuade his fruitless chase, and either convince him to return home even emptier than when he had left, or wander forever. Perhaps it had tried, the Boy thought. Perhaps the Woods had planned to take him in those lapsing memories, and had attempted to fashion walking, mournful bones out of his corpse - as the stories went. He had entered without a fairy to light his way, after all. Yet he was able to leave its midst, as alive and lightless as when he had started, and had found himself among rolling fields, blue skies, and an unfamiliar vastness. 

Why the Woods let him go, the Boy couldn’t even begin to imagine. But the surprise of breaking through its mysterious, possessive fissure only to be met with a sight so familiar and so different to the land he had left behind sent him reeling. He felt somehow freed by the discovery - as though he’d broken some taboo, smashed through an ancient boundary and been made witness to something that he was never expected to see. A world beyond Goddess-blessed lands.

He wandered there for a time, in only a small corner of the unknown land, dipping his toes to test the waters and finding them to be tumultuous and unpredictable. Round-eared humans dominated the villages and towns he stumbled across, and their reactions to the knife-eared, equipment burdened child entering their domains varied wildly in intensity. Some welcomed his presence with friendly caution, while others rejected him openly and left no room for misinterpretation, and many more simply ignored him. It wasn’t long before he found himself at the city of Gardanse, and soon came to learn of where exactly he stood in this new land.

There were things that held him back from immersing himself in new challenges, and new discoveries - for it was those, he had decided, that he wanted to pursue for the time being, to seek comfort in the unfamiliar as he hunted down that which gave him true meaning. Things that he held dearly, things he did not want to let go of… but which, at one point or another, he simply had to.

Which was, in truth, the real reason he now stood at the entrance of the Lost Woods. To return the things which still linked him to Hyrule.

Epona snorted as a cold wind blew out like a breath from between the trees, contrasting sharply with the pleasant, late-evening breeze. The Boy stroked her neck, slowly and softly, and stared ahead into the Woods with hardened eyes. He could see it right in front of him - the hollowed-out tree trunk that served as an entrance into the village that housed the children of the forest - barely even a minute away from where they stood. Another joke the Woods had made at his expense no doubt, that it would rob undisclosed days from his life only to offer him such an expedient return. He sensed the makings of a trap, but the Boy had given too much thought to his decision to back away now. He would have to risk it.

So the Boy entered the Lost Woods once again.

He checked behind him as he reached the Kokiri Village entrance and still saw the open fields close by, behind only a few layers of trees which watched over him with unwavering interest. He did not expect his escape route to remain for very long.

With the pounds of metal strapped to his back rattling, he dismounted Epona and landed strong on his feet. He moved quickly, before he gave himself too much time to reconsider. The Boy unstrapped a small travel bag filled with dried food and emergency supplies from the filly’s saddle, which would be light enough to carry on his person. He lifted off another, much airier bag, then set them both on the ground 

Of the two swords that weighed on his spine, the Boy took off the stubbier and wider of the two - the blade that belonged to the Kokiri, which had seen no use until it entered his hands - and sat it against the wood of the hollowed trunk. Inside its sheath was a note, written in a language he knew the forest children would understand. 

He moved then to another bag, sealed shut by magic and which would only open at the utterance of a specific phrase. The Boy scarcely believed the eccentric man that had sold it to him inside Gardanse’s walls, and in exchange for his surplus of rupees as well, a currency that he had quickly discovered to be next to useless in that new land. But the results spoke for themselves. No force the Boy applied to the plain looking bag’s mouth would open it, and no weapon, flame, explosive or corrosive could force a way to plunder its contents. It was, by all accounts, indestructible.

The Boy tested his chosen phrase on the bag, and sure enough, the words melted away its resistance. He reached his hand inside and took one last look at the instrument that rested in his palm. The ocarina that could control time and undo mistakes - the one that had been thrown so desperately into his hands, and then taken back from him when the day had been saved. The same one that had been given to him in secret, when the princess had caught wind that he planned to leave the land of Hyrule - for his protection, and undoubtedly, for her kingdom’s as well. What better way to lock a door forever than to throw away the key. 

He no longer wanted the responsibility of looking after the royal family's heirlooms, no matter how much power it may have given him. He felt it time to return that responsibility back to them, and let them handle it however they wish.

The Boy set the blue ocarina back in the bag and sealed it tight. He uttered the phrase once more, and when magics held it tight, he placed a note scrawled with his finest handwriting in its binding rope and secured it to the saddle. No instructions on how to open the bag resided within his note, only who the parcel should be delivered to - and he knew well that it would reach its destination one way or another. He would let the royal family and its princess of destiny figure out how to access it among themselves.

He checked his body for all he wished to keep - his shield, though rife with the iconography of Hyrule, was forged to be his own, and therefore held few memories he wished to relinquish. A bow of rusted metal held clipped to his baldric, between his shield and newly-forged sword, and another equally rusted device hung from his belt. Where they came from, he had no idea, but for whatever reason he felt a great sentimentality towards them, and had already made efforts to see them restored. Alas, he knew they did not hail from Hyrule, and therefore did not need to be sent back.

And with that, the Boy had only two things left to return, and both, he knew, would hurt him the most to leave behind. He turned to Epona.

Another saddle bag held apples and a waterskin. With soft clicking and a hand rested gently on her head, he fed the filly until she would eat no more, and cupped water in his hands until her thirst had been quenched. He stroked her muzzle and she lowered her head to let him scratch behind her ears, and laughed quietly as the young horse grew excited and butted him in the chest, seeking more affection. So he lavished her with all the affection she deserved. 

He was not sure what he had done to deserve the attention of such a loyal and loving friend. He had feared, in his return to the body of a child, that the young horse would flee from his visage, as she had used to. But, as if by miracle, it had been the horse that approached him first in his re-entry to Lon Lon Ranch, with neither the aid of song to attract or the promise of food to bait. While she had moved cautiously to greet him, her intent was clear none-the-less, and the action had stunned both the red-headed ranch girl and himself. In no time at all, a bond seven years removed had been restored between them, and within that lay memories both cherished and horrible. 

The Boy knew, somehow, that he had felt the stinging pain of losing Epona. Everytime the thought drifted to him, he felt his legs burning, his fingers cracking, heard a distant laugh growing further and further away. And it brought bile to his throat every single time. Such thoughts assailed him as he spent time exploring that new land, the potential of the unknown taking Epona away, stripping her of life, leaving her to rot and him to suffer the consequences. If something like that ever happened to her, he would not know what to do. The Boy would have nobody to blame but himself for leading her into danger, and for that he did not believe he would ever be able to forgive himself.

It would take her less than a day to make it back to Lon Lon Ranch from here, and he needed an unwitting courier to deliver the royal family’s artifact halfway to its destination. He had promised Malon that he would return her horse home, and for Epona’s sake, he intended to keep it. He no longer wanted the responsibility of holding her life in his hands.

Yet, he found himself shivering at the thought of letting her go. But he had to. He had to.

The saddle groaned as he tightened it on Epona’s back, and underneath it he placed one, final note - one of little value, and containing only a few words. “You know the way, girl,” he uttered softly, unable to figure out if he was saying it to Epona, or just himself. “I know you do.” He pulled on the saddlebags, ensuring that they would not come loose and fall off in her travels. The filly turned her head and watched him as he worked, glassy-eyed and confused. 

The Boy held Epona’s muzzle between his hands, and smiled at her. “It’s time to go home,” he said. He scanned for any amount of understanding in the horse’s eyes, and watched it all fall away whenever he stepped backwards and stood at her side. The Boy moved to collect his bags from the ground, and tied the heavier one to his baldric. 

When he turned around again, Epona too had turned to face him. 

For every step he took backwards, Epona followed with steps of her own, stopped every time that he stopped. She simply did not understand.

He did not know what he could say. How he could make her understand why he was doing what he was doing. He did not know how to tell her goodbye.

The Boy felt his lip quivering. Every part of him wanted to turn and bolt, to remove himself from the eyes of the innocent creature that bore holes into him. He wanted to believe that if he just shied away, she would not give chase, and instead realise how close to home she was. That she would hear Malon’s song, and be drawn to it. That she would leave the Woods, and forget him.

But he had done that before, to someone he cared deeply for. And he never forgave himself for it. He could not bear to do the same to Epona.

The Boy dropped the bag to the ground once more and rushed the filly, throwing his arms around its neck. Whether she understood the gesture or not, he did not care. His teeth gritted as he felt her head nuzzling against his shoulder, her fine hairs tickling the skin of his cheek. And he held her for so long that even she began to grow concerned.

“Go,” the Boy said, his breath shaking against her flattened ear. “Please. Go.”

He let go of Epona, and used all of his might to take a step back from her. The horse stared intently at him, asking him silent questions for which he had no answers left to give. She rooted him to the ground, while the Woods watched. 

And then, in time, Epona lowered her head and turned away from him. 

She stepped slowly towards the entrance of the Kokiri village, and then trotted past the flittering sprites that drifted through the air. The Boy watched as the filly was swallowed up by the darkness of the hollowed path. 

And with that, Epona was gone.

In that moment, the Boy truly believed that he could begin to understand how Saria must have felt.

The Boy heaved a heavy, laboured breath, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He knew that Epona would find her way. 

Collecting his bag again, the Boy had found his assumption of the Lost Woods intent to be correct. The walls had closed in around him, and the entrance to Kokiri Village was sealed. He had been trapped, and had he any intention of returning to Hyrule now, it would have proved impossible. 

And for the moment, he was glad.

Only one path remained open to him, and it would appear that he and the Woods were on the same wavelength - he had one last visit to make, and one last item to leave behind, deep within the Woods, in the Sacred Forest Meadow.

\---

The gates to the maze were open, as though in excited anticipation of the Boy’s arrival. Two hulking wolfos stood guard atop the archway, wariness in their eyes as he strode towards them. Their fur looked clean and healthy and their muscles strong, a far-cry from the mangy, emaciated wolfos he had dealt with in his past. He held his hand to his weapon, just in case, yet the beasts did not jump down from their perch. Instead, they bowed down when he grew closer, as if in reverence to him, then laid flat on their stomachs and proceeded to lick at their paws. Sensing no ill-will, the Boy entered the gates, and navigated the maze by memory.

When he approached the steps at the end of the Wood’s little playhouse, he saw a lone, green-topped deku scrub waiting at the apex, its leafy head poking out from its hidey-hole. It took one look at him lugging his way up the long stairway, and in a move devoid of a scrub’s usual boldness at such a range, its amber eyes widened before it immediately hid itself away, rather than attempt to pelt him from a distance  _ then _ shrivel away in cowardice. The Boy had his shield prepared in expectation of a hail, and had no intention of hurting it, but still - if it was meant to be guarding the sanctuary from intruders, it was doing a rather poor job. Its leaves trembled as the Boy walked past and headed up the second stairway.

Saria’s secret spot remained just as he remembered it. Had he not known better, he would have expected to see green hair and green clothes playing an ocarina on the stump ahead of him. If only he could have been so lucky to see her one last time. 

He trampled muddy boots over the raised, Triforce adorned platform that stood in his path, and brought himself down to one knee in front of the empty tree stump. 

He had been here too, long before he had left Hyrule, to bury something precious in memory of his friend, his carer, his mentor - his only true solace for all his years within the village of the forest children - who had been spirited away from this world. Her parting gift to him, and one that he had replaced with something new and shinier for the longest time - out of necessity, maybe, but not without guilt. He had held Saria’s gift close to his person in his travels throughout Time, backwards and forwards, until his Goddess-given duty was done. But he knew that he did not deserve Saria’s ocarina after that. He had played her song on it, and received no answer. Perhaps she could not hear him, wherever she was. Or perhaps she simply did not wish to speak to him anymore.

The Boy did not deserve her music. So he honoured it instead, in the soil of the Sacred Forest Meadow, in his old friend’s place of solitude. A place that, in her kindness, she had shared with him. 

So, too, had he now come to bury something else beside her, whether out of symbolic gesture or pure, narcissistic arrogance.

The Boy held the light bag in front of him with both hands. Inside rested the clothing of a forest child, made by Saria and maintained throughout his years. Brown boots, green clothes, green hat. They fit him still, and he had made attempts to fly the colours of his origins as much as he could - even as he searched for answers, even in his expedition into the new land.

But. He had given it heavy thought. He was not a Kokiri. And he never would be. And he decided that it was time to stop.

He knelt now instead in muted colours; in bulky, dark brown leathers concealing dull grey mail; arms and legs covered in warming wools, yet constrained by yet more defenses; boots fitted, practical, sensible. It all weighed down on his small body, but he bore it anyway. 

He knelt now as some stranger in her sanctuary, a nondescript soldier or mercenary, some twelve-year-old killer-for-hire that was trying far, far too hard. And maybe, secretly, that’s exactly what the Boy wanted.

He took a deep breath, and clawed his fingers into the soft ground at the base of the stump. It peeled away with ease, and the Boy continued shovelling until a small hole made a chasm in the earth.

_ You torture us, child.  _

The Boy waited, and waited. He cradled the bag in his hand and stared at it, his face steeled, eyes narrow. He needed to do this. If he ever wished to find purpose again, to move on from memories he no longer wanted to keep, he needed to do this. He needed to.

_ We can stay silent no longer. We can not stand idle and watch such impetuous behaviour continue.  _

No voice had entered Link’s ears, only the soft breezing of the meadow’s wind. The will of the Woods had no need for such crude methods of communication.

_ What do you hope to achieve through such a pitiful display? You have already returned all that you borrowed from that land, and thus failed to understand the true meaning behind your possession of them. We said nothing when you buried her music, yet now you seek to bury her love for you also? You dishonour her. _

The Boy’s soil stained hands gripped into the thick burlap. He had to do this.

_ Retrieve your instrument, child. It serves no purpose among dirt. Retrieve it, and play for us. We desire to hear her song again. _

He couldn’t do that. The Woods were wrong. It was not his instrument. He stole it from her hands, and ran like a coward. Like a child. He did not deserve to have it again. He did not deserve anything from her.

His hands shaking, he placed the sack into the hole, and then found himself unable to move, as though the Woods itself subdued him with invisible bindings.

_ We grow tired of this foolishness, child. We will not accept this offering. Retrieve your ocarina. _

“Let go of me,” the Boy said calmly. His body shook as he forced against his restraints.

_ She does not wish you to forget her. And she does not wish you to forget yourself. Take back her gifts to you. Be done with these senseless graves. _

The Boy swallowed the lump choking his throat. “What do you mean ‘she does’?”

_ Because she does, child. No longer does she sing for us, yet we hear her voice still. Your actions bring sadness to her. _

“Then where is she?” the Boy said, trying and failing to keep his voice level. “Let me speak to her myself.”

_ We do not know, child. And had we the knowledge, we would not tell you. Not after what we have witnessed this day. _

Yet still, the Woods heard Saria’s voice, and he did not.

Perhaps he had been right.

“Let me go,” the Boy said. His voice wavered.  __

__

The Woods complied, and the Boy rose to his feet. Two sets of twisted vines grew out slowly from beneath the ground, cradling in them the sack he had just left inside its resting spot, and an amateurly made, plain wooden box, the soil caught up in its emergence now crumbling down off its sides - a box the Boy himself had built to house Saria’s ocarina. He winced at the sight.

The vines stopped at the Boy’s chest, tilted towards him to clearly present what they held.

_ We will not let you forget her so easily. Take them. Take them, and never let go. _

“No,” the Boy said. 

_ You are not being granted a choice, child. Take your garb. Take your instrument. And play for us.  _

Play for it. The Boy turned his head around. A mass of vines blocked his exit. “For how long?” the Boy said. 

The Woods paused in their answer.

_ Once, child. Her song. It has been too long since last we heard it. _

“And if I do, you’ll let me leave?”

Another pause. 

Longer.

_ Yes. _

The Boy clenched his fists. With no other choice, he rubbed his hands on his trousers and placed mud-dried fingers on the box of his own creation. He lifted off its lid, and claimed the treasure inside. The little clay ocarina - imperfect, and beautiful. He held it in his hands like a delicate creature, and brought it tight against his chest. Had it not been for the layers of leather and metal that armoured his body, he just might have felt its warmth against his beating heart.

He raised the ocarina to his dry lips, closed his eyes, and played the song of his old friend.

And he did not know for how long he remained there, serenading the Woods with the notes it longed for. How many lost wanderers he may have guided through fog and darkness. How much simple joy it brought to any who may have heard it echoing.

When his eyes opened again, everything was as it had been. He looked at the Ocarina in his hand, and breathed a slow, steady breath.

_ You would have denied yourself the pleasure of music, child, in your haste to forge distance from your past. She does not wish that on you. And neither do we. _

The Boy sucked in his lips, and gripped the ocarina tight in his palm. He moved quickly to take the bag from the vine’s grasp, placed Saria’s instrument inside it, and turned to see his exit still remained impassable. His face contorted into anger.

“I did what you wanted. Let me through.”

_ You play her song beautifully. There had been a time, child, where we had hoped you would take her place in her absence. That you woul-- _

His hand found the cold hilt of his blade. “Let me through.”

_ We are giving you this opportunity, child. A choice truly of your own. Stay with us. Play for us. No harm shall ever come to you. We will give you all that-- _

“Shut up,” he growled. “I’m sick of playing these games. You’re giving me a choice? Then listen to me - keep your word, and let. Me. Go.”

The Woods fell silent. The Boy twisted his foot, gave it but a moment to comply, and just as the blade clicked from its sheath, a passageway in the wall to his right split open violently, revealing a darkened path and swirling, ghostly-white fog.

_ Go, then. Suffer more, if that is your wish. We will light your way through this one final time, but never again. And when your questions remain unanswered, and regret wracks your very soul - remember us. Return to us. You will be welcome here, child. You always were. _

His heart thumping, the Boy stood straight and let go of his weapon. Nothing about the passageway presented to him made him feel comfortable. Yet neither did the implication of the Woods’ offer to him. He could never trust in it the same way Saria did, and with how reluctant it had been to keep its promise, and how forcefully it had talked him out of a decision he had truly wanted himself to make…

He really had no choice left. The Boy had to risk it.

With the bag tight in his hand, he took strong, purposeful strides towards the open passageway, passed into its mouth, and engulfed himself within the thick, embracing fog.

The passageway closed shut behind him, and then, the Boy was free.


End file.
